Archive for the ‘Literacy general’ Category

New curriculum or more effective teaching practices?

James O’Loan covered an interesting topic in The Courier Mail on October 16 which has sparked ongoing discourse within the teaching community and beyond. Mr O’Loan highlighted the “controversial ‘new’ curriculum focusing on grammar and punctuation” and including phonics as part of students’ literacy education. Is Mr O’Loan inferring that this is a controversial new curriculum because …

Literacy Solutions’ annual educator’s survey is now open. The information it collects will help us determine the ways with which we can meet the professional development needs of literacy educators. The more people who complete the survey, the richer and more detailed the picture will become.

The survey has only 13 questions, nearly all of them multiple choice. A fluent English speaker should be able …

The Queensland Government has announced an early education initiative aimed at increased participation in pre prep programs by children aged 3-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years.

Queensland currently has 97% of children aged four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half attending full-time preparatory year programs, but only 29% of pre prep aged children participate in early education programs, delivered by qualified teachers. Whilst participation in education programs is relatively low, 48% of …

Queensland Education minister, Rod Welford recently commented on the results of the Years 3, 5 and 7 literacy and numeracy tests on ABC radio.

Mr Welford commented that a student’s success at school is largely dependent on the literacy levels of their parents, and in particular their mother.

Extensive studies highlight the link between students’ home lives and their school achievement levels. Factors of race, …